They will think of her often: .... When, a long, long time later, he stares down at the silent blue marble of the earth and thinks of his sister, as he will at every important moment of his life. He doesn't know this yet, but he senses it deep down in his core. So much will happen, he thinks, that I would want to tell you.
Oh good heavens, this book is intense.
Gut-wrenchingly sad in bits, the book provides a window into the life and history of a family, with the loss of a loved one as the premise. Ng creates a delicately crafted window to peer into their lives, and how each one of them makes sense of it, and how they deal with it. It's a study in loss, grief, and the scars we bear. Age-old scars that become fault-lines, fault-lines that haunt you, stay with you, colour your perception of reality and your interactions with those around you, and threaten to define you.
Ng does a wonderful job of exploring the fears and wants of her characters, all embedded within the strange and remarkable dynamic of a family. I absolutely love her prose and how she switches perspectives almost seamlessly.
This book will stay with me. For a long, long time.